Vaccination

[bunn]

There are definitely things about living in Wales that remind me of the 1970's, and not only because I was a child in Wales in the 1970s. 

In England, they are furiously organising walk-in booster vaccination clinics. 

In Wales, we are told that we must wait to be called upon by the State, because heaven forbid that the Welsh should have to queue in the rain in a 'free-for-all' 

It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that if there is a long rainy queue, people will see it and go home, returning at a time convenient to them. 

Whereas, if there is an Official State Letter Giving One An Appointment, inevitably that appointment is going to be at a time and place that many people cannot make, because their lives are busy and complicated, and there is no provision for telling The Government when you simply cannot get away. 

Therefore just as with the vaccination program earlier this year, there will be oodles of missed appointments, particularly since I am pretty sure that once again there will be no simple way to reschedule.  (I tried to call the contact number on my Official Letter, on my way for my Official Government Appointment, after getting stuck in traffic, and found myself in an infinite on-hold-loop.  Fortunately it was fine, I was only a few minutes late in the end, and a lot of other people had not turned up or were also late, so it wasn't at all busy.) 

No doubt there will also once again be a bunch of people who hear on the grapevine that you can just turn up because so many appointments are being missed and the guys doing the vaxing are understandably keen to get doses into arms. Those people will have a 'free for all' after all, while everyone else waits for their turn which will be all the later because the system has no flex for anyone's job, childcare, etc.  

I don't know how people who are travelling for work or have no fixed address for The Letter to go to cope. 

Sigh. First world problems, kind of.  

Comments

[narya_flame]

The Scottish system was like this the first go round, and unfortunately they decided I didn't exist up here because I didn't have cause to visit a GP up here prior to the pandemic (I was registered, just had never been in person). In the end they took so long trying to sort out a jab appointment for me that I crossed the border and got one in England.

[bunn]

I have to admit, I have a visit to my mother planned soon, and I wondered if we could possibly do a walk-in in England. But no doubt that would complicate matters further in terms of record-keeping for boosters.

Have they found you in the system yet, or can you just book yourself in now?

[hhimring]

I hope it works out for you!

[bunn]

Having dug deeper, (into the depths of local journalism at Wales Online) it appears that some of the Welsh health authorities are at least semi-officially offering some walk-in vaccinations, and ours is one of them.

We meant to go and look today and at least see what the queues were like but for some reason Theo kept getting up in the night so today I was very short of sleep. It seemed foolish to invite side-effects by going into it in a state of zonked urghness, so I gave up on that idea and had a nap. Maybe tomorrow!

[wellinghall]

Far too much of the NHS relies on letters being seen by the recipient promptly, once they have been dictated / typed.

[bunn]

And all the different bits of the NHS doing things so differently...